Loren Tyr

Occasionally I get missing buttons on the Exit confirm (I recall having had them on other pop-ups like it as well, but not sure exactly). I can still click the space the button is supposed to go and exit / cancel so it's fairly minor in that regard, but since it persists in the 3.03 beta version (I already had this in 3.02) I thought I'd report it.

Didn't you just respec the character? At the earlier timepoint (second picture) your character has Knock Down instead of Confident Aim.

The underlying mechanism can vary a bit between abilities and effects, so it can be hard to tell sometimes. But for example Bloodlust is a passive, and Inspiring Exhortation (and Inspiring Radiance) apply an AbilityMod (which acts like a passive). In other cases there are actually different stats involved (eg. Melee Accuracy vs Accuracy). Vielo Vidorio very much looks like a plain active status effect though.

Agreed. Not that I ever play solo, but it would be better anyway to have it just let the combat mode run on. The charm effects run out eventually anyway (or until you attack them), but it seems that you should be able to make use of the opportunity to regroup and reposition while your enemies are temporarily docile. And same with invisibility, runs out fairly quickly as well so why not run an 'in enemy visible range' check only after it ends, and only end combat mode them (if out of sight).

I don't see any great need for stat balancing in the current game, so I'd say it is extra work. But aside from that: if you are going to limit stat bonuses to specific item slots they're not going to stack much if ever anyway, so there wouldn't be any need to remove the stacking restriction. In any case, I think you'll find that there are plenty of players who would want no such limitation. I'd say you are just really bad at solving optimization problems. I certainly have no problem with them, your speculations notwithstanding. And frankly you're the first person on this forum I have seen complain about this at all, so it doesn't seem to be a major problem for others either. Actually, 'less tedious' and 'more fun' isn't a goal at all, it's two goals. And in most cases the global minimum of 'tedious' (or 'effort') and the global maximum of 'fun' are unlikely to exactly coincide. So although in a superficial sense the goals may be individually 'objective', how the two should be weighted is not. Moreover, what constitutes 'tedious' or 'fun' is a thoroughly subjective matter; as is in fact neatly illustrated by the fact that I have not experienced any of the tedium you describe, and would expect the simplifications you are proposing to result in a (potentially ruinous) reduction in the fun I could have with the game. "Not obsessively trying to optimize every last single stat" isn't gimping, that's just the normal way most people play games. Somehow it seems that given a particular configuration for your party, you can't have fun with it unless you are assured that this is the most 'optimal' or 'efficient' configuration (as if there is only one, anyway). Not because the current configuration isn't good enough to play the game or is somehow inherently un-fun, but only because it *could* be better. It's like you are eating some excellent ice cream, but can't really enjoy it unless you are sure that it has the optimal distribution of sprinkles. And to address this problem you have somehow created for yourself, you are proposing that no one should have sprinkles at all. Does that seem reasonable to you? You want the game to be dumbed down because on the one hand you don't want to expend any effort trying to reach some kind mathematical optimum in the game, but other hand consider it beneath you not to strive for it anyway? Do you have any idea how absurd that sounds? Here's a tip: if you find something to be more tedious than fun, don't do it. Find something else that you do enjoy, and go do that instead. It's really just that simple.

No, the effort is inherently a lot higher *without* those stacking restrictions. Removing the stacking restrictions only removes the dependence of stat-specific bonuses between item slots, it doesn't reduce the optimization problem into a set of 9 independent problems. For example, it may well be that for a particular character it may well be that a big boost to either Deflection (+18) or DEX (+5) is superior to boosting both by a smaller amount (+9 / +3). Thus you still need to consider all equipment in the context of the other equipment available; moreover, this applies even if in this case boosting both *is* optimal, as in the example there are two ways of doing so (+9 +2 and +9 +3), one of which is strictly superior to the other. But you'd only reach that conclusion if you considered them in combination, rather than isolation. Moreover, as noted, removing the stacking restrictions effectively *increases* the number of item permutations that need to be considered. Suppose we have the two rings and belts you describe, plus 2 viable items each in 7 other slots. So 2^9 = 512 possible permutations. Let's say we start with the rings and belts: under the current stacking restrictions, of the four possible belt/ring combinations one (option d in my tabulation above) is strictly superior to the rest. And precisely because of the stacking restrictions this cannot be changed by any other item, option d is superior independent of whatever else you are equipping. As such the ring and belt slots can already be fixed on the option d items, and there are only 2^7 = 128 item permutations remaining. Without the stacking restrictions however, there are three belt/ring combinations that are viable, only option a can be ruled out already for being strictly inferior to option d. There are thus still 3 x 2^7 = 384 item permutations remaining. And this applies generally, the stacking restrictions allow you to more quickly eliminate large sets of inferior item permutations than you would be able to without them. In practice, the number of evaluations you need to make (or at any rate, the number that I need to make; maybe I'm just very efficient), is vastly smaller still. With a new item becoming available, many (sub)combinations simply don't need to be evaluated again because you already did that already the last time you were equipping items. Reevaluation is needed only if and to the extent that the new item changes the value of other items relatively to each other, which it generally does to only a limited extent if at all (and again, which would be more likely to happen without the stacking restrictions). Maybe that's what *you* want, and perhaps there are other as well. But that's hardly representative of all players. I think there would be a lot of members of this message board who wholeheartedly disagree. If Obsidian told them they were going to reduce the number of viable equipment combinations to make life easier for the players, they would rebel (myself included; for all the amazing Boeroer builds we'd miss out on alone). There are plenty of players who would want more options, rather than fewer. Maybe (like me) they have a different threshold or definition of tedium, maybe (like me) they don't need to evaluate 10^9 combinations to get at the optimal solution. Maybe it's something else, but regardless it seems a bit presumptuous for you to claim to speak for them. Now, whether they would welcome lifting the stacking restrictions I don't know. As outlined above, and contrary to your claims, this actually considerably increases the number of viable options (yay!) but at the cost of jeopardizing balance (boo!) and requiring a lot of additional development effort that could otherwise be spent on something else (boo?). What also keeps confounding me is why you play the game in this way. You say that making the optimal equipment decision is a tedious process, so why do you do it? As said, you can get to that optimal decision much more efficiently than you seem to be doing, but apart from that: if you don't enjoy it, why not stick to (slightly) suboptimal decisions made at a fraction of the effort? It's not like the game punishes you for not milking every last possible drop of stat bonus from your equipment, even on PotD. The beauty is that there are so many different, viable ways in which you can play this game. I mean, people have completed PotD solo with all sorts of self-imposed (equipment) restrictions just to see if they could do it (they could); you missing half a point of Deflection bonus somewhere is hardly going to be an obstacle. So why this urgent need to optimize, apparently at the expense of your enjoyment of the game?

Druid Stag does seem a bit low true, and grazes are essentially misses with that multiplier (and it's one per rest as well). On the other hand the Druid's stats are easier to boost than Stag Companion and they hit like a truck and at a very high base damage and -5 DR. It's 18-29 base damage, I expect that's why they toned down the Carnage damage percentage (well, that and Wildstrike, presumably).

Addendum: when dual-wielding with Blinding Strike (etc.) from stealth I also don't get Backstab on the first hit, but I do get one on the second. When attacking (dual-wielding) with just regular attack I do get Backstab on both hits. Though for some reason when using Blinding Strike (etc.) the first attack is consistently made with the off-hand/second weapon (rather than with the primary/first weapon, as with a regular attack), so that quite possibly is the underlying cause there. Dual-wield + Blinding Strike + Shadowing Beyond gives no backstab on either hit though, so that's clearly still a different issue.

When my rogue with Backstab ability attacks from Shadowing Beyond with Blinding Strike, the Backstab does not trigger. It does trigger properly when performing a regular attack from Shadowing Beyond however, and also when performing a Blinding Strike from stealth (both when initiating combat with that attack, or sneaking up to an enemy a while after combat started). The same happens with Crippling and Envenomed Strike, so presumably the Backstab fails to trigger for any combination of Shadowing Beyond and a special attack (could this be an ordering issue thing somehow, ie. with the Blinding Strike being processed first and immediately removing the Shadowing invisibility, resulting in the Rogue not being invisible anymore when Backstab gets processed?)

In which version did you try this? Because in the current (beta) 3.03 version it works on the first two attacks regardless of weapon style and weapons used, provided you don't interfere with the auto-attacking. It also works fine from Shadowing Beyond (and any other invisibility effect, as far as I'm aware). This is mostly how it worked in 3.02 as well by the way, though you only got a single backstab from Shadowing. However, it failed to trigger on the first hit when you used one of the rogue Strike abilities, which is presumably what you were doing when you got the results you describe. This is also (mostly) fixed in 3.03 (beta), you now can eg. Blinding Strike + Backstab from stealth on the first attack as well. For some reason this doesn't work properly from Shadowing Beyond yet, so if you Blinding Strike when Shadowed the backstab is suppressed (I'll report this in the Beta support forum).

Yup, Carnage just subtracts 0.34 from the damage multiplier, same as Crit/Graze, Might, Sneak Attack, etc. For Barbarian and Ranger companion stag Carnage anyway, Druid Stag Carnage subtracts 0.67. (and yes, that means that Druid Stag Carnage will generally do negative damage; rounded to 0 in practice, but it actually shows up like that in the combat log)

And I ask again, allowing full stacking as you propose solves this how? Let's run through your example here. In the current system we have the following four options (let's assume there is only one available ring slot): a) +9 DEF +2 DEX, b) +9 DEF, c) +3 DEX and d) +9 DEF +3 DEX. Thus, it's a no-brainer, option d) is optimal. However, if we remove stacking restrictions as you suggest we get: a) +9 DEF +2 DEX, b) +18 DEF, c) +5 DEX and d) +9 DEF +3 DEX. We are now suddenly faced with three viable options rather than one. Rather than removing the alleged tedium and speeding up the optimizing process, it did the exact opposite. And as noted, by making it so much easier to reach high stat bonuses balancing becomes more difficult and inherently more unstable. The reason I don't run into many length equipment quandaries is because I generally have quite a clear idea for each character what kinds of bonus to prioritize for them. If I have an item giving, say, a Resolve bonus, there will realistically only be a few characters at best for whom that item is going to be the best pick in that item slot (unless it's the only choice). Of the many possible permutations of available equipment, the vast majority can be crossed off out of hand because they are never going to be the top choice. There are only a few that really need further consideration. But what I fundamentally don't get is just exactly what it is you're aiming for with the changes you propose. On the one hand you say you like build optimization, and you propose a change (remove stacking restrictions) that would considerably increase the number of potentially viable equipment combinations. But you also complain about tedium, about having to constantly reevaluate equipment choices, and propose another change (restrict bonus types to specific item slots) that considerably reduces the number of viable that need to be considered (and removes much of the reason for lifting stacking restrictions in the first place). It seems like you're saying you want build/item optimization, but you would like to see the number of options to do so be reduced so it doesn't take too much effort to do so.

My group is very much as optimized as I think, and for the many hours I have played this game I've never needed to do spent any significant amount of time with the kind of unequipping you describe. Sure, once you hit the point where (say) the amount of useful headgear exceeds the number of available heads, you're likely going to shuffle around some hats at some point to make the most of them for your party; this in itself has nothing to do with the stacking system. And though the stacking system does entail that this can indeed result in other items becoming less useful for a particular character and might prompt some more re-evaluation and possible shuffling, I've never had anything like the kind of cascade you are talking about. In practice there will tend to be only a limited set of equipment permutations that make a priori sense and need to be evaluated. Moreover, balancing the relative merit of different bonuses for a character against each other is at least as much of a factor here, and can equally cause subsequent shuffling even with full stacking. In your example, the Chanter would still need to decide between (say, having a Blunting Belt) +5 INT / +1 PER and +3 INT / +5 Pierce&Slash DR. Arguably, without the stacking restrictions this actually becomes more of an issue, because there are more item combinations that make sense. So while you are free to state your suggestions, I am equally free to question what problem they are meant to solve, and what the consequences would be.

You must never have played any of the old Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale games either then (which inspired PoE in the first place). And you are hardly the only one who likes customizing his characters, it's one of the main draws of PoE I'd say. The stacking could be clearer in the interface, but even without for example the warning system I suggested I still don't see what the big difficulty is here. Given a set of items it's not that hard to figure out how to get the most optimal results for your purposes. I'm not sure what other games you've been playing, but if you find this too tedious then I would suggest that that maybe has got more to do with you than with the PoE system.

I bit odd, indeed. Paladins in PoE aren't the D&D holy warrior types and have no particular undead-specific abilities (correction: they have one optional one, late game); they are zealots, warriors fighting for some particular cause/ideal/institution. They're also arguably better healers than Priests. So I'm not sure what you're going on about.

Assuming they didn't change that part in 3.03, from stealth at the beginning of combat (though not coming out of Shadowing Beyond invisibility) the first two attacks get backstab regardless of weapon style, including ranged weapons (reload time and all). However, you only get the second one on auto-attack, if you click to attack something before the second attack lands you don't get additional backstab. As I recall though, if the target expires on the first hit and you let the AI attack an adjacent target, you do still get a second backstab (not sure this works with dual-wielding though). Note that this is two attacks total (not two full attacks per se), so with dual-wielding it's still just two hits. Like I said though, not sure whether anything changed about this since 3.02, will need to verify. Edit: I checked, still works like that. Even better actually, you also get a second Backstab with Shadowing Beyond. Again provided that you don't yourself actively initiate a new attack.

Except that the restriction is there for good reason, removing it would require a major revision and rebalancing of all abilities, spells, bonuses, etc., not just the equipment. And unlimited item (and active/modal) stacking also makes stat bonuses much more variable and therefore inherently more difficult to balance, since it considerably extends the amount of bonus that can be (easily) obtained to any one stat.

I had Durance feebly flail at my rogue, and it triggers when Paralyzed. Thus it stands to reason it always triggers. I also peeked under the hood, and I don't see any checks on any status effects, supporting this. Thus, counter-intuitively, even a Petrified character should Riposte. I suspect carnage damage should trigger it as well, but that's obviously a bit more difficult to test out.

But it interacts with the new Escape ) True . Though a true Noble would never run! (it goes without saying that my Riposte rogue must be a rapier-wielding aristocrat, with stylish hat) But maybe I'll find an excuse for him to use it anyway.

But how does changing the stacking rules help that? The only thing they affect is whether a bonus might be wasted, any optimization beyond that is up to you as the player to figure out. Even if you throw the stacking rules out the window completely, you'd still need to determine which set of items will best match your goals.

Cool! Time to dust of the Yak Hat and try some more Riposting. Pity it still doesn't interact with Adept Evasion of course :-D (or that the conversions don't interact).

But the warning alone takes care of that, since it ensures that you will always be aware of (equipment) suppressions immediately. Changing/removing the (equipment) stacking rules or restricting bonus types to specific equipment wouldn't add anything to that, yet would involve completely rebalancing all other bonuses as well and restrict the freedom for developers and designers in creating flavourful items (I'd say for the most part equipment bonuses already do make sense relative to the equipment type, description and associated back story, anyway).

Changed how, though? Just letting everything stack doesn't seem like a good idea, creates a lot of balancing issues. What would be nice though is a warning system of sorts, that when you equip an item you get a transient pop-up telling you which other equipment bonuses it is suppressing and which of its own bonuses are being suppressed.

Internally, all it really does is run the existing item through a Copy constructor (actually, not sure they're called that in C#, but same thing), copies any item modifications from the old item to the new one, puts in your Stash, then makes the (expended) Helwax Mold disappear. So you just get a new Helwax Mold. Or actually, you just get a message saying you can only duplicate equipment :-D.

I didn't use up all the charges, but they are tracked independently. Different Gloves/Rings had their own count, which was unaffected by using the other. So they must have fixed the bug in 3.01 or 3.02. Presumably the count was originally tied to the item ID (in conjunction with the character ID), rather than its instance ID. This would explain why even non-copied duplicates like Ring of Searing Flame would behave like this (but pre-Helwax Mold it wouldn't have been nearly as noticable).